So now we know what the FA means when it claims to be influential in Fifa
circles. Influential as in acquiescent; influential as in mute and unseeing;
influential as in prepared to do anything, to sacrifice any principle or
last crumb of self-respect in a vain grab for the 2018 World Cup.
There is a good chance that England will end their season with a match in
Trinidad & Tobago, at the invitation of Jack Warner, the Fifa
vice-president and president of Concacaf. Ostensibly it will mark the
centenary of football on the islands; in reality it will be an exercise in
glad-handing one of the most powerful figures in the world game - a man who
has stated his aversion to a World Cup in England.
There is a suggestion that Warner will have to retract some of his more
incendiary comments if England are to make the trip and the FA may even
dress this up as a moral victory. It is nothing of the sort. If England
follow Warner’s beckoning, crooked finger in the hope of bolstering the 2018
bid, they give credibility to one of the most despicable figures in football.
Warner’s continued presence at the right hand of Sepp Blatter, the Fifa
president, leaves the organisation without authority while its leader
pontificates on moral and ethical issues. In 2006, World Cup tickets
allocated to Trinidad & Tobago were sold in packages by a travel company
run by Warner’s son, Daryan. Fifa’s executive committee expressed
disapproval but claimed that there was no proof that Jack Warner knew what
Daryan Warner was doing, or that the son got hold of tickets for a Fifa
tournament through his father, the vice-president of Fifa. Profits from this
scheme may have run into seven figures.
After the competition, Warner offered Trinidad & Tobago’s World Cup
players a bonus of £498 each, claiming that his federation had made a profit
in the region of £1.462 million from the tournament, before deducting costs
of £1.434 million. Government figures put the World Cup income at nearer
£13.862 million. Warner’s reaction was to attempt to ban any dissenting
players from the team and, again, Fifa turned a blind eye. This was,
apparently, a localised dispute.
There is more. According to John McBeth, the former president of the Scottish
FA, Warner asked for a cheque from Trinidad & Tobago’s friendly
international against Scotland on May 30, 2004 to be made to him personally,
rather than to his federation. McBeth refused.
Sport and ethics are often strange bedfellows, as the presence of the Olympic
Games in Beijing demonstrates. It is wrong that sportsmen are required to
make value judgments about men such as Robert Mugabe when governments are
too cowardly to act. Warner’s case is different. The FA is not being asked
to take a political stand by refusing the trip to Trinidad & Tobago.
Saying no to Warner is saying no to the abuse of power at the top of the
game. Sadly, it is more likely that the FA will submit in the craven hope of
garnering the support of a man whose patronage is the very sign that the
mission is misguided. If this is what needs to be done to get the World Cup,
why would any decent nation want it?
A Wise posting (not)
Dennis Wise says that he will not poke his nose into Kevin Keegan’s business
at Newcastle United. His primary duty is to build up the youth academy and
it is accepted that, in the short term, the club may have to buy their
future, plucking the best youngsters from smaller clubs. With that in mind,
what was Wise doing sitting next to Chris Mort, the chairman, during
Newcastle’s match at the Emirates Stadium on Tuesday? What was the point of
attending a first-team match?
A short way down the M4, Swindon Town were playing Middlesbrough in the FA
Youth Cup. Middlesbrough are believed to have one of the best academy
set-ups in the country, yet Swindon won 2-0. Not a bad place to start
scouting, then, for a club looking to cherry-pick their youth team. And how
less intrusive Wise would have appeared had he been there, rather than
perched by the side of Mike Ashley’s powerbroker in the directors’ box,
overseeing another awkward 90 minutes for the manager.
Wise’s official title is executive director (football). You have got to love
the brackets-football part.
As opposed to what exactly? Executive director (greengrocers in the high
street). Have Newcastle got a chain of launderettes we don’t know about?
The money sounds good, but little else about Wise’s appointment is right. He
is too young for a desk job and there is nothing more dangerous to a manager
than a bored “executive director brackets football”. Had Keegan got his feet
under the table, had this been three months down the line, perhaps he would
have resisted Wise’s arrival or demanded greater clarity over his role.
Instead, it seems as if he was ambushed at a time when he was too distracted
to resist or consider the implications.
Money matters most
On the website of the supporters group that hopes to buy Liverpool from their
owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr, two questions are asked. “What
would Bill Shankly have wanted?” and “What would Bob Paisley have wanted?”
The answer is simple: they would have wanted the same as Rafael BenÍtez –
the money to get on and manage.
We imbue our past heroes with great nobility, but football men have not
changed much over the years. They want somebody who writes the cheques and
keeps his nose out of the football. Shankly said exactly that, in fact, and
he did not have to pit his wits against £6 billion of Russian oil money or
take on a club that has been financed by the wealth of a global brand.
If he had, he would have been pragmatic. He would have wished for owners who
gave him the best chance of winning. And while that may not be Hicks and
Gillett, it may not be a fledgeling supporters’ trust that needs to raise
£500 million just to get in the game, either.
Pearce’s double bluff
Stuart Pearce is coach to England’s first-team. He is also the England
Under-21 head coach. Maybe he has a twin.
The under-21s play Ireland in a qualifying match tomorrow and presumably will
wish to train today, so unless Fabio Capello’s backroom staff have cracked
human cloning, that leaves Pearce out of first-team training sessions on
those dates, which are the only two scheduled before the first team’s match
against Switzerland on Wednesday. No doubt Pearce will be on the bench, but
having had no involvement with the team during the build-up to the match,
how much use will he be?
Also, in the white-hot atmosphere of competition, what language do you think
Capello and his staff will use to communicate quick decisions and exchanges
over tactics, substitutions and patterns of play: halting English or native
Italian? At which point, Pearce is a bystander.
The selection of Aaron Lennon for the under-21s suggests better links between
the two squads. Pearce should learn from the experience and, in the long
term, a more productive relationship may develop, all of which is positive.
But his title would appear to be overegging it. England coach? Pearce should
be so lucky.
Silence remains golden
There will be silences for the dead of the Munich air crash at many matches
this week. If one is broken, however insensitively, do not respond. It is
often the exchange of angry words that desecrates the moment, not the
random, lonely outburst of a fool. The continued silence will answer his
thoughtlessness more effectively than a vocal riposte ever can.
